


And In Our Perfect Secret-Keeping

by roscoesantangelo



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 06:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11030991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roscoesantangelo/pseuds/roscoesantangelo
Summary: AU loosely based off the movie Killers. Jake Peralta has no idea he married a spy, and his life comes crashing down when assassins start to come after them, and he realizes the truth about his wife.





	1. Chapter 1

The summer after Jake Peralta finished university, he went to France. He was supposed to go with his girlfriend, as an after-grad celebration, but they broke up right before the year ended, leaving Jake stuck with a non-refundable ticket, and no choice but to see the country alone.

                It was his second day in Paris, on his way to lunch, when he met her.

                He had just stepped into the elevator when she slipped in behind him. She was wearing a gorgeous summer dress, covered in a flowery pattern and reaching all the way to the floor, and her hair was long and wavy. She smiled at him as she stepped in, a warm, genuine smile, and he stared back, awestruck. He had never seen a more beautiful woman in his entire life.

                “Bonjour,” she said with a grin. “Comment allez-vous?”

                “Oh, um…” Jake wracked his brain for the French he had learned for the trip, but the only phrase that came to mind was “je suis perdu”—“I am lost”. “Um… oui?” he replied nervously.

                The woman smiled at him. “I take it you don’t speak French?” she asked.

                Jake felt a rush of relief hearing her speak English, and noticed that she had an American accent. “No, I do not. What gave it away?”

                She laughed. “I just had a feeling.”

                The elevator doors opened, and they both stepped out, though neither of them made a move to leave right away. “Well, your feeling was right.” Jake told her. “English is my only language. And even then, just barely.”

                At this, she laughed again, and Jake felt a strong rush of affection for her. “I’m Jake, by the way. I’m from New York. The city.”

                “I’m Amy,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m from New York too.”

                Jake smiled as he shook her hand. “Oh, no way! That’s awesome.”

                “Yeah.” Amy seemed to consider something for a moment. “Hey, this might be a little forward, but did you want to have dinner with me?”

                Jake couldn’t believe it. This incredible woman—the most beautiful woman he’d ever met—was not only from the same city as him, but she wanted to have dinner with him. “I’m actually just about to have lunch, if you wanted to join me now,” he told her.

                Amy bit her lip. “Oh, I’d love to, but I actually have somewhere I need to be.” She tugged on her purse strap. “But meet me back here at seven, and I’ll take you to this fantastic restaurant I know, okay?”

                “Okay, sure,” Jake said. “I’ll see you then.”

                Amy smiled and tucked her hair behind both ears. “See you then,” she repeated, before turning around and walking out of the hotel lobby, leaving Jake feeling amazed as he watched her go.

               

                Jake met Amy back in the lobby a few hours later, and she took him to a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower. Amy laughed when he asked if they had chicken strips, and helped him pick something he would actually eat. She ordered for them both in French, and Jake watched her in wonder. She was incredible.

                While they ate, they talked about themselves. Jake told her about school, and how he’d just finished his Communications major, and Amy told him about her own Art History degree, and how she’d like to work in a gallery.

                They both had very little by way of family. Jake was an only child, raised by a single mother after his dad left, and Amy’s parents were both dead. While she also had seven brothers, they lived scattered across the U.S., so she barely saw them.

                After dinner, Amy took Jake to a café, where she ordered them each a pain au chocolat. Then, as Jake ate his pastry, getting chocolate all over his lips, Amy took him up to the Eiffel Tower. They stood up there for a long time, watching the lights of Paris twinkle below them. Amy slipped her hand into Jake’s, and Jake smiled. Just a few weeks ago, he had been heart-broken. Just this morning, he was stuck in Paris on his own. And now, he’d met the most amazing woman ever, and he was holding her hand. It was almost too incredible to believe.

                Jake looked over at her. Her dark eyes reflected the lights of the city. She’d just said something, but he didn’t catch it, and she turned to face him. “Jake? Are you—?”

                But Jake didn’t hear the rest of that thought either. Because suddenly, his hands were on her face, and he was leaning down, and Amy had stopped speaking, and was looking at him like he was the only person in the world. And a second later, they were kissing.

                They stayed like that for quite a few minutes, just him and Amy, high above the City of Lights. It was one of the best moments of his life.

                Eventually, they broke apart. They were both breathless. After a few moments, Jake spoke.

                “Look, I don’t want to move too fast, but... did you want to take this back to my room?”

                Amy smiled up at him and kissed him again, quickly and softly. “I’d love to.”

               

                After that first night, Amy and Jake spent the majority of their remaining time together, and Jake soaked up every minute of it. He even went to the Lourve with Amy, despite knowing nothing about art. One their last day together, she disappeared for a few hours. Something about how she had to visit the university she’d done her study-abroad in. She didn’t explain too much, just told Jake she’d be back soon, and that it was all rather boring. Jake was a bit confused, but she made up for it as soon as she arrived back at the hotel, and it was soon all but forgotten.

                Upon arriving back in New York, they kept in touch, and continued to go on dates. Amy had been living in Manhattan, but told Jake she’d wanted to move to Brooklyn anyway, and quickly made the change, which made it a lot easier for them to keep up. After a year and a half of dating, Amy got an offer to work at an art gallery in San Francisco. Jake’s home had always been New York, but seeing how excited she was, he knew he wanted her to do this, and they moved to California together.

                After 2 years of dating, Jake proposed to her on the beach. He’d never felt so happy as he had in those past 2 years, and he knew he never wanted to lose Amy. A year later, the two were married.

                And 2 years after that, they were living together in San Francisco when everything changed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I just want to say thank you to allmylovesatonce for helping me with some ideas, and reading over some stuff! Thanks, Gretchen! :)  
> And I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!!

When Jake wakes up that morning, it feels the same as any other day. Amy’s got his arms wrapped around him, still asleep, and he snuggles into her. He loves being the little spoon. It makes him feel warm and safe, like just having Amy’s arms around him is enough to protect him from any danger.

                Amy makes a little noise behind him, and he knows she’s awake now. “Good morning, Ames.”

                Amy presses her face into Jake’s shoulder and he feels her smile. “Morning, Jake.”

                Jake lifts Amy’s arm and turns around to face her. He kisses her softly on the forehead, and she grins. “I love you,” she says.

                “I love you too,” Jake replies. He kisses her again, this time on the lips. Amy puts a hand on his face, and they lay there for a while, soaking each other in, until finally they have to get up for work.

                Jake makes eggs while Amy gets dressed. Neither of them were great at cooking when they first met, and Jake ended up being the one who stepped up and learned. Not that he can really do much, but he knows enough to keep them fed. He makes scrambled eggs and toast, and is setting it on the table just as Amy walks in. She smiles at him.

                “This looks really good, babe.”

                Jake beams proudly. “Yeah, it only took me five years to learn to make good eggs.”

                Amy laughs. “Well, it was worth it.” Her hair is long and wavy, and she’s wearing a floral blouse and her glasses—grey with a slight cat eye—and it strikes Jake once again that this is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. And he’s married to her. He loves her whole-heartedly, and she loves him back just the same. It’s almost hard to believe.

                They chat a bit over breakfast, Amy telling him about a new piece coming into the gallery, and Jake describing the advertisement he’s started working on, and then they’re kissing each other on the cheek and parting ways for work. Everything feels so normal as Jake says goodbye to his wife. This is the way it’s always been, and it feels like the way it always will be.

                Work is pretty good for Jake. They make great headway on their newest ad idea, and begin to work on how they’ll present it to the company. At lunch, he sits with his team—his best friends Charles Boyle and Gina Linetti—and listens and laughs as Gina recounts her latest dating tragedy. Jake thinks that Amy’s friend Rosa would be perfect for Gina, exactly what she needs, and makes a note to ask Amy if Rosa might be interested.

                At the end of the day, Charles catches up with Jake as he’s leaving.

                “Hey Jake! I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go hang out at the bar for a bit?”

                “Oh, dude, I’d love to, but I was actually planning to take Amy out for dinner.” He gives Charles a smile. “But definitely tomorrow, okay?”

                Charles seems deflated for a second, but then he perks up. “Okay, I’ll see you then.”

                “Okay Charles, see you then,” Jake tells him as he walks to his car. He opens the door and gets in, starting the car and turning up the Taylor Swift CD he has playing. And with that, Jake heads home, completely unaware of how his life is about to change.

 

                Amy’s car is already in the driveway when Jake gets home, and Jake hurries inside to meet her, throwing the door open. “Ames, I’m home!”

                Instead of a response, Jake hears a crash come from the living room, and runs in to see Amy grappling with a woman. They’re on the floor, the other woman on top of Amy, pushing her down into the remains of their coffee table, her hands around Amy’s throat. Near them on the ground is a knife, and Amy’s struggling to reach her fingers out far enough to grasp it.

                “Oh my God!” Jake exclaims. “What the hell?”

                At Jake’s exclamation, both Amy and the woman look over at him. The woman rolls off of Amy and grabs the knife. She tries to charge at Jake, but Amy’s right behind her, and tackles her to the ground. They grapple for a bit as Jake watches in confusion. They’re fighting for the knife. Suddenly Jake sees red, but they’re still moving so much that he can’t tell who’s bleeding. Jake wonders if he should help, but he isn’t sure what to do. He’s not even sure what’s happening.

                Then suddenly the other woman’s holding the knife up, and Amy’s lunging for it, but it’s too late. It’s already out of the woman’s hand, and sailing right towards Jake. He’s frozen to the spot in fear and confusion, and it just barely misses his shoulder.

                Jake screams. He looks over at the knife, the tip now buried in the wall, inches from his shoulder. Weirdly, the one thought that comes to mind is that it’s theirs. It’s part of the knife set they bought when they moved into the house.

                “Jake!” Amy yells. She’s still grappling with the woman, kicking out at her. “The knife!” She headbutts the woman, hard, and she exclaims in pain, holding up a hand to her nose. Amy holds her hands out, and Jake tosses her the knife, almost on instinct, even though he barely knows what’s happening. It flies through the air, and Amy catches it impressively by the tip. She twirls it around in her hand and takes hold of the handle, then plunges it down into the woman’s chest with zero hesitation.

                “ _Oh my God!_ ” Jake screams. “Amy, _oh my God!_ ” Jake sinks to the floor. He feels like he’s going to be sick. Of course, the floor isn’t much better considering how much blood is on it.

                “Jake!” Amy gets up and rushes to his side. “Jake, are you okay?” She puts a hand on his shoulder and looks at him with worry in her eyes.

                Jake doesn’t respond, but he does lean over and throw up, all over their carpet.

                “Jake?” Amy asks, and he can hear the worry in her voice. Jake’s the one who should be worried. He just saw his wife stab a woman. What the hell?

                “Jake, are you okay?”

                “What… the… fuck?” Jake breathes out. Amy gives him an uncomfortable look.

“Yeah, I have a lot of explaining to do. And I promise, I will. But first, are you okay?”

                “Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine. What about you?” He looks at her arm, the one reaching out to touch his shoulder. It’s bleeding, a deep cut lashed into the forearm. “You’re bleeding, Ames.”

                She looks at it, seemingly unconcerned, then back at Jake. “I’ll be fine. Can you get up right now?” She slowly tries to help him up, and he lets her. Part of him wonders if he should trust her, after what she just did. But it was in self-defence, and he’s too pre-occupied with feeling sick. Besides, she’s his wife. Of course he should trust her. There’s probably nothing she could ever do to make him stop trusting her.

                “Okay, come on, I need you to come upstairs.”

                “Why?” Jake asks, even as he lets her guide him up there.

                “We need to pack. I’ll explain in the car, okay?”

                “But Ames, you’re bleeding. And where are we going? And what just happened?” They make it into the bedroom, and Amy helps Jake down onto the bed, then hurries into the bathroom.

                “Look, Jake, I know this is all very confusing, but right now, we _need_ to go.” She comes back out with gauze wrapped tightly around her arm, and pulls out a suitcase from their closet. She starts pulling out a few outfits and shoving them in. “If there’s anything you _absolutely_ need, I suggest you grab it now. We’re never coming back.”

                “Wait, _what_? We’re _never_ coming back?” Jake sits up from where he’s lying on the bed. “Amy, what the _fuck_ is going on?”

                Amy sighs and stops packing, then slowly turns to face Jake. “Okay, I promise I’ll give you _so_ much more detail in the car, but basically, I used to be a spy.”

                “What, what? A spy? Like James Bond type stuff?”

                Amy nods. “Exactly.” She turns back to throwing things in their suitcase, moving across the room to rummage for underwear. “But I quit when I met you. I’d been wanting to for a while, and when I found you, it really helped me make up my mind. That woman, she worked for a rival agency. They’re the bad guys. I thought I was safe, but I guess they found me,” she adds. She opens the middle drawer in the dresser, and runs her hand along the bottom of the top drawer, withdrawing a gun.

                Jake looks at her in shock. “Wait, is that a _gun_? You keep a _gun in our house_?”

                “Just in case…” Amy says, giving him a nervous look that might be endearing under different circumstances.

                “Okay, babe, you know I love you _so much_ , and honestly, the fact that you’re a spy sounds pretty fucking cool, but also, you lied to me? All these years?”

                Amy grimaces. “I did, yes. And I would _love_ to talk more about that once we’re _in the car_. Seriously Jake, we have to go! If that woman found us, it’s only a matter of time until more people like her catch up with us too!”

                Jake sighs and stands up. He still feels a little sick, but he follows her request and starts packing. “You promise to explain everything to me?” Jake asks.

                “Of course, of course!” Amy says, looking relieved as she watches him grab some shirts. She starts grabbing more stuff herself. Jake notices that this includes a second gun that comes from somewhere in the bathroom. “I’m so sorry I ever lied to you. I thought I was protecting you, and honestly, that may have been stupid of me, but I can promise you, there’s no one I care about in the entire world more than you.” She stops in front of him and gives him a weak smile. “Okay?”

                Jake looks into her eyes, and he can immediately tell she’s telling the truth, her face is so full of love. He’s not ready to forgive her for lying to him for the past five years, at least not right away, but he can tell that she had good intentions, and that he should still trust her. “Okay.” He tosses his last few things into the luggage. “Let’s go then.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to allmylovesatonce for helping with editing!! :)  
> I hope you guys enjoy!!

“Okay,” Amy says once they’re sitting in the car and she’s driven partway down the street. Jake wonders where they’re headed exactly, if Amy has a game plan, or if she’s just anxious to get of here. Knowing Amy, she’s probably already planned for this, but Jake can’t wonder if it didn’t catch her off-guard, just a little. Well, even if she didn’t already have a plan, she probably has one by now. “So, I used to be a spy.”

                Jake nods, but doesn’t say anything. He’s just watching her drive. He’s having a bit of trouble with apprehending that this is really happening. Part of him knows that it is, but another part of him finds it so unreal that he can’t possibly believe it. It’s just a weird dream, and he’s going to wake up soon.

                Amy looks over at Jake and frowns. “Jake,” she says as she increases her speed, despite the fact that she’s already going way past the speed limit. “Are you feeling okay? Are you going to be sick again?”

                “I mean, maybe a little bit,” Jake says as Amy swings around a corner. “Although that’s partly because of your driving.”

                Amy frowns. “Sorry.”

                “But it’s just, I don’t know. It feels so unreal. It’s kind of incredible. I mean, you’re a spy, I married a spy! That’s _incredibly_ badass. But like, also insane!”

                Amy smiles. “Didn’t you say once it was your dream to be a secret agent?”

                “I have said that multiple times, yes. Or a cop. Honestly whatever lets me be like—“

                “John McClane, yes.” Amy finishes for him, and Jake feels his heart swell with affection.

                “But that’s just it. It’s my dream. It’s a fantasy. And I don’t know, it’s just weird to think any of this is real.”

                Amy nods. “I get it. It’s a lot to take in.” She pauses and thinks for a moment. “So I should probably finish explaining, get that all out there for you to absorb.” She’s getting on the highway now, and they seem to be heading east.

                “Probably,” Jake agrees. “So we’ve got that you used to be a secret agent. You wanted to quit, and upon meeting me, you made that decision final.”

                “Yes, because I wanted to try and lead a normal life, and you were amazing, I knew you were who I wanted to lead it with.”

                Jake grins at that. “So you quit, you felt good, and now your enemies have found you.”

                “Yes. So I quit, which I was allowed to do. The organization was fine with it, as long as I signed some confidentiality waivers, basically promising I’d never tell anyone about what I’d done or what I knew, or they’d kill me. Which was fine, because I would never break a rule anyway.”

                “Of course not,” Jake says, though he’s eyeing the speedometer. This is an extenuating circumstance, of course.

                “So I was good. Of course, it meant I couldn’t tell you the truth, but I figured it didn’t matter anyway. That part of my life was over. I was going to start a normal life.”

                “Wait, how’d you even become a spy?”

                “I was recruited when I was eighteen. I was a very talented gymnast. And I had no parents, I was already living on my own; I was separate, independent. They liked that. Plus, I’d already been considering becoming a cop. I had potential.”

                “Right, right. Well, you are a _very_ talented gymnast,” Jake agrees.

                “Thank you,” she says, blushing a bit. “Anyway, I was recruited, and I worked for a while, but I don’t know, I just wasn’t loving the work anymore. It wasn’t satisfying anymore, and sometimes it would make you wonder, am I even the good guy? So I quit, and I _know_ I should’ve told you, I know you would’ve kept it a secret, and I could trust you without having to worry about that contract, but honestly, I didn’t think it was necessary. Like I said, I just wanted to move on. And somehow, I even thought you’d be safe if you didn’t know any of this, that that would keep you protected from all of it. But I should’ve told you, at least a little bit. I should’ve prepared you in case anything happened. I’m sorry. And I especially should’ve been prepared myself if anything happened.”

                He can hear the regret in her voice, and in that moment, he instantly forgives her. She just thought she was making the best choices to keep him safe, and that’s what matters. “You weren’t prepared?”

                “I mean, okay. I have my safehouse, and my alternate safehouse, and I had the guns in the house and all of that, but I mean I could’ve been a lot more prepared.”

                Jake laughs. “Only _you_ could think you need to be more prepared. That sounds pretty good.”

                “I’m serious Jake. These people want to kill us. And trust me, it’s not as fun as Die Hard makes it seem.”

                “Okay, I never said that Die Hard made it look fun for people to want to kill you.” Amy gives him a look. “Oh come on, of course Die Hard looks fun! He rappels off a roof!”

                “Right…” Amy says after a pause. “Well, I can tell you we won’t be doing that. I just can’t believe I wasn’t more prepared. I really thought we were safe. I mean, I left Manhattan, I changed my name, I changed my hair, I started wearing my glasses more, I moved us to San Francisco, I changed my name again, I thought we really had this.”

                Jake looks at her in shock. “Is your real name not Amy Santiago?”

                Amy tenses up nervously. “Um… maybe not quite…”

                “Well then what’s your real name?”

                “Does it really matter? I mean, what matters is what it is now. Legally, I’m one hundred percent Amy Peralta now.”

                “Come on, you just apologized for lying to me! You can’t do this! You can’t pick and choose what to tell me! We are full honesty from now on or I am leaving you!”

                “You’re welcome to if you want. Keep in mind though, they’re probably after you, too.”

                “You wouldn’t!”

                Amy smiles. “You’re right, I wouldn’t. And you wouldn’t leave me either.”

                Jake nods. “Yeah, you’re right. I wouldn’t.”

                “It’s Mariposa,” Amy says after a pause. “It means ‘butterfly’. But Amy’s my middle name, and it’s what I’ve gone by since I was younger. I hadn’t used it as an alias before, and legally, no one at the agency knew it was my name, so it seemed like a good choice. I liked being able to use it again. It may not be my legal name, but it felt like the truth.”

                “‘Butterfly’…” Jake says. “Interesting.”

                Amy gives him a look. “Yeah, I can see why you prefer Amy. Well, is there anything else you need to tell me?”

                “Did I cover how sorry I am? And how much I love you?”

                “You did, but I love you too, so that’s always welcome to hear. And you’re forgiven.”

                “I _am_? Already?” Amy sounds shocked.

                “I know you were just trying to do what you thought was best. I believe you. It’s fine.”

                Amy smiles. “How did I find such a forgiving man?”

                “I don’t know. I guess you were lucky.” Jake watches her as she weaves between cars. They’ve reached the Golden Gate Bridge, which is unfortunately jammed with cars. Amy swears softly as she’s forced to slow down. Jake looks over at her anxiously.

                “We’re not even out of the city yet. We can’t slow down now.” She sighs. “We’re going to die just fifteen minutes from our house.”

                Jake puts a hand on Amy’s shoulder. “We’re not going to die.” He considers this. “Well, okay, _probably_ not going to die?”

                Amy sighs again, and swings into a sudden opening in the next lane. This gets them just a bit further ahead before they have to stop again.

                “Wait,” Jake says after a few minutes have passed. “Were you in Paris for work then?”

                “I was,” Amy tells him as the traffic moves forward a bit. They’re almost halfway across the bridge now, which doesn’t seem too bad, but Amy still looks anxious to get out of there. “That’s why I couldn’t go to lunch with you that first day. I had to go take care of some business.”

                “Do I want to know what it was?” Jake asks.

                “Probably not.”

                “Okay.”

                “And our last day, when I left to go to the university, I was actually going to call my boss. I wanted to let him now that I’d made up my mind, and I wouldn’t be continuing my work once I made it to America.”

                “Ahh, interesting. Wait, does that mean there was never an Art degree?”

                “You’ve seen my degree,” Amy replies, scowling at the car next to them.

                “Right, right, right.”

                “I continued to go to school after I was recruited, and actually managed to complete my degree early.”

                “So you had to balance two full-time commitments and you still finished early.” Jake feels a sense of pride for his wife. “Incredible.”

                “Thank you,” Amy says. The traffic’s starting to flow a lot more quickly now, but he can still sense a bit of impatience.

                “So where’re we going, by the way?”

                Amy looks around at the cars near them, seeming to check that no one looks suspicious. “Florida,” she replies softly.

                “ _Florida_?”

                “That’s where my safehouse is. We’ll go there to give ourselves time to regroup, and plan. Then we’re leaving the country.”

                “The _country_?”

                Amy frowns and bites her lip. “It’s not safe here anymore, Jake.”

                Jake nods. He guesses it doesn’t really matter. They’re already uprooting their whole lives anyway, what does it really matter if they leave the country? “I understand.”

                “Good.” Amy looks at him and frowns. “I’m really, _really_ sorry Jake.”

                “I know. It’s okay.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. They’re almost at the end of the bridge now, and Jake takes Amy’s hand in his. “I mean, on the one hand, it does suck, but on the other hand, this is still pretty freaking cool.”

                Amy smiles, but pulls her hand back as they finally reach the other side of the bridge, and she’s able to start speeding through the streets again.

               


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long! I just got busy, and once you get a little bit behind, everything gets thrown off.  
> But I'm back, and I promise to still keep posting as consistently as I can! Thanks for reading, I hope you guys enjoy!

                Amy’s been driving for three hours when they finally make their first stop, pulling into a stop on the highway near Fresno. Jake’s been pestering her for a while for food—they never did get to go out for dinner—and Amy thinks it’s time to ditch their car. She says it’s already been too long.

                It’s already pretty dark out as they walk into the stop, and Amy’s wearing one of Jake’s hoodies to keep herself warm. She squeezes his hand as they enter, then separate, Jake going to get food and Amy going to find an ATM. Along with the car, Amy wants to lose their debit cards, since they can be traced back to them way too easily. She’s going to try to take out as much money as she can, and they’ll start using cash only.

                Jake gets them both burgers, and Amy manages to get $2,500 out of the ATM, half of which she passes to Jake as they exit the truck stop.

                Outside, the two of them return to their car and scope out the area. Once Amy’s deemed the parking lot empty, Jake quickly pulls their bag out of the car and the two of them hurry to the furthest corner of the parking lot, where Amy sets to work on breaking into a car.

                “I can’t believe that I am watching Amy Peralta break into a car with my own two eyes,” Jake observes. “I mean, even with the whole being a spy thing, who could’ve imagined this?”

                “Yes, I know, I’m usually obsessed with rules. It’s just, rules exist for a reason, you know, and where would we be if we didn’t follow them—?”

                “Amy, I’m gonna cut you off, I cannot listen to your rule-following philosophy while you break into a car.”

                Amy sighs and pulls the car door open, slipping inside and opening the other side for Jake. He gets in, putting their bag in the backseat and balancing their food on the middle console. “This is an extenuating circumstance, of course,” Amy says with a slight air of righteousness. “I told you, we can’t keep driving our own car. It makes us way too easy to track. So yes, we have to _bend_ some rules. But it’s for the greater good, so in a way—“

                Jake sighs. “Just admit that you’re a badass rule breaker.”

                “Why?” Amy asks as she begins to hot-wire the car. “Is that attractive to you?”

                Jake smiles. “It can be.”

                “Well, did I ever tell you about that time that I jay-walked?”

                Jake can’t help but laugh. “I don’t think so, but it sounds incredibly badass.”

                Amy grins. “It kind of was.”

                Jake’s about to reply to that when suddenly the car comes to life.

                “Perfect,” Amy says, disengaging the emergency brake and shifting to drive.

                “You know, for a running for our lives type thing, this is actually going super well.”

                “Right? Of course, we can’t get too cocky yet. It’s still over forty hours to Florida, and I doubt they’ve forgotten about us.”

                Jake nods, and leans back in his chair. “Of course. But if it stays this quiet, it could actually be kind of fun. Just me and my wife on a” he sings the last part “ _road trip!”_

                Amy smiles at him in the darkness of the car. She’s just about the pull back out onto the highway when something suddenly pierces the window on Jake’s side, sending glass shattering everywhere. It slices into Jake’s side, leaving his cheek and arm stinging.

                “Oh my _God_!” He exclaims. He’s doubled over, trying to protect himself from further damage, and he feels Amy quickly turn onto the highway, slamming her foot down on the gas. She’s gathering incredible speed when suddenly their back window shatters in an explosion of glass. Jake feels a big piece hit his shoulder, but tries not to think about it because it’s terrifying. “Ames, what’s—ahh!”

                Amy swiftly careens into the next lane, speeding up still, and the surprise movement cuts off Jake’s train of thought.

                The stretch of highway they’re on is fairly empty, which seems to give whoever’s shooting at them the comfort to keep doing it. This time, a bullet sails through the former back window and lodges itself in the backseat headrest. Jake sits up to look at it in terror, and can’t help but think of the fact that that could’ve almost hit him.

                “Jake,” Amy says as she changes lanes again. “Are you okay?”

                “I think so…” Another bullet seems to hit the trunk door, which actually comforts Jake a little bit. It seems that they’re getting enough distance that the shooter can’t aim as accurately. Now if they could just lose them altogether.

                Amy seems to on the same train as thought as him, and increases her speed even more. Jake thinks she must be going at least 30 miles over the speed limit as she moves over again and gets onto the exit ramp.

                “Ames, is that really the best choice?” Jake asks.

                Amy doesn’t take her eyes off the rearview mirror. “We need to get somewhere more populated, where they won’t been so keen to shoot. And this’ll give us a much better chance to lose them. You can get lost on city streets. The highway, not so much; it’s just a straight line.”

                Jake nods. Even while driving under pressure, with an assassin on her tail, Amy is still cool and logical. He loves it.

                As they enter the city, Amy decreases her speed just a smidge, though she still keeps well above the speed limit. The first chance she gets, she takes a turn. Then another, and yet another. After a few minutes, it seems that they’ve lost whoever was behind them, though Amy keeps turning through random city streets just to make sure. After ten minutes, she pulls the car in behind a restaurant. She puts the car in park and looks over at Jake, concern all over her face. “Are you okay?”

                “Well, I mean, I’m cut up pretty bad,” Jake gestures to the many little cuts along his right side. “But I’ll be fine.”

                “Okay, that’s good,” Amy says, reaching behind them to pull out their bag. “Because we have to go.” She hesitates for a quick second, then starts speaking again. “By the way, you have a giant piece of glass sticking out of your shoulder, but we _absolutely_ have to go, okay, come on!” She pushes her door open and hops out, leaving a horrified Jake with no choice but to follow her.

                “What?” Jake hisses into the night. Amy makes a shushing sound as she hurries across the parking lot to the only other car around. Under normal circumstances, Jake would probably be at least a little bit turned on, but right now, he’s just caught in shock.

                As soon as Amy’s opened the car, and they’re sitting inside, Jake freaks out. “There is a piece of _glass_ _inside of me?_ ”

                Amy nods, not looking up from her hot-wiring, which she’s doing frantically. “Look, if we can just get out of here, a bit further away, I’ll take care of that, okay?”

                “But it’s _in my shoulder_!” Jake exclaims. “Ewie!”

                Amy gives him a look of pity. “I’ll get it out, I promise.” The car roars to life, and she quickly puts it in drive and tears out of the parking lot. “Or, there’s a bottle of alcohol and some bandages in the bag. You could do it yourself.”

                “Is the alcohol to drink? Cause I think I’m going to need it if you expect me to pull this out by myself.”

                Amy shoots him a look. “It’s rubbing alcohol. So you don’t get infected.”

                “Can I drink it?” Jake asks.

                “Could be fatal,” Amy tells him.

                “Well, dying would be better than having to remove this shard from my shoulder.”

                At that, Amy’s face turns serious. “About that… Jake, I’m so sorry you got hurt.”

                “It’s fine, really,” Jake says, even as he grimaces in pain at just the thought of pulling the glass out.

                “No, I’m really sorry. It was my fault. I dragged you into this. You thought you were just married to a normal woman, a normal wife, and I never told you the truth. And that put you in danger. You could’ve been killed back there!”

                “Amy, I’m fine, really.”

                “I know, but I feel terrible. It’s all my fault that you’re stuck in this situation.”

                “Well, you can make it up to me by pulling this shard out of my shoulder,” Jake tells her as they pull back onto the highway.

                Amy sighs. “Honestly, though, Jake. I’d feel terrible if anything bad happened to you because of me. Which is why you’re not leaving the country with me.”

                “Wait, what?” The shock is enough to distract him from horrifying thoughts about his shoulder. “What do you mean I’m not leaving with you?”

                “I have to keep you safe. I don’t want you getting hurt because of me. So we’re gonna separate. I’ll take you as far as the safe-house in Florida. From there, I’ll find you protection. Enroll you in Witness Protection. You’ll get a new normal life, and you’ll be safe. Away from me.” Amy looks like she might cry. “It’s the best way.”

                Jake feels like she’s slapped him now. “Amy...” Jake’s at a loss for words. “Amy, no.”

                “I’m sorry Jake, but I can’t keep you in danger. I can’t let you die because of me.”

                “You know that I would _gladly_ do that,” Jake counters.

                “Well, I don’t want you to have to.”

                “Well, what about all the danger between here and Florida? You can want to leave me to keep me safe all you want, but we’re still stuck together for quite some time, and I could die at anytime. Hell, I could die at anytime _regardless_ of the those bad guys. You know how unhealthy I am!”

                “Yes,” Amy says. “I regrettably do.” She shudders. “Look, I know Florida’s still far away, and you’re still going to be in danger for a bit, but if I can get you into protection there, well, at least I can keep you from further danger. And I can give you a good life. I knew we were in danger, but this just made it so much more real. You could’ve died. I thought I could protect you, and clearly I can’t. You’ll never be completely safe as long as you’re with me, we’ll always be on the run, with the constant threat of danger looming over us. I don’t want that for you. I want you to be safe and happy.”

                “But what’s the point of all of that if I’m not with you? Amy, I love you _so much_.” He takes her hand off the steering wheel and holds it. “I would much rather spend my life in danger _with you_ , than in safety _without_. So I’m not leaving you, okay?”

                “But Jake—“

                “No buts. Amy Peralta, I care about you too much to lose you. I don’t care what kind of danger it gets me in. I just care about being with you.”

                “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.” Amy’s definitely crying now.

                “I’ll be fine. It’s my choice to stay with you. It’d be _my_ fault if something happened. Just please let me stay.”

                Amy nods and takes her hand back, wiping the tears from her face. “Okay. Okay, if that’s what you really want, then fine.” She looks over and him with glassy eyes. “I just love you so much.”

                Jake smiles at her. “Thank you. I love you too. And we’re gonna make it through this. _Together_. And then we’ll live together, somewhere nice, and safe, and we’ll be happy. Okay?”

                Amy smiles. “Okay. Now,” she says, wiping off her tears again. “You should seriously pull that glass out.”

                Jake makes a face. “I seriously do not want to.”

                “Come on, you can do this. Do you need me to pull over and do it for you?” She asks.

                “Yes, please,” Jake says, giving her a smile. “And actually, it might be nice to stop. I think I left the food in the other car.”

                Amy nods. “Just give me half an hour,” she tells him, speeding up.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's been so long guys!!!!  
> This chapter was hell. It took so many restarts to get it right, and to actually get it flowing, but we are finally here (and close to the original, which is annoying)  
> Anyway, I'm here, I'm trying, I haven't forgotten about y'all, and I hope you enjoy!  
> Thanks to peraltiagoisland for being my proofreader this time! <3

50 minutes later, Jake and Amy are sitting in the car together, Jake’s shoulder disinfected and bandaged up, and a bag of tacos sitting between them. Jake starts digging into the bag as soon as they start moving.

                “So,” Amy starts. It’s been a while since she’s spoken. They haven’t talked much since their conversation earlier. At one point, Amy started to debate if she should stop for the night, but it seemed more like she was thinking out loud than starting a conversation, and Jake had nothing to contribute. In the end, Amy came to the conclusion that, as dangerous as it was, they would have to stop for a few hours, as she was getting tired, and she didn’t trust Jake to keep his calm if something happened while they were driving. Which was hurtful, but also pretty fair. He would _not_ know what to do if they were shot at while he was driving.

                Amy looks over at him now, seeming to examine Jake. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “For wanting to separate from you earlier. I’ve just been thinking about it, and I’m really sorry I wanted to leave you behind.”

                Jake looks at her in profile. She’s biting her lip. “Amy, I completely understand. Don’t worry. You want to keep me safe. I get that.” He puts his hand over hers. “As long as you know that we’re a team. I mean, you’re the leader, definitely. But we’re both in this together.” He smiles at her, and she returns the smile.

                “Good. I don’t know, I was just worried about how we left it. I really am sorry.”

                “And it really is okay,” Jake says in response.

                “Thank you,” Amy says with a nod. She reaches into the taco bag and carefully unwraps one. “Well, we’ve got a few hours till we stop for the night. So...?”

                “Hey, am I going to get to learn to shoot a gun?” Jake asks. The question just popped into his mind.

                Amy nods. “Definitely. You need to be able to protect yourself. But,” she adds, giving him a stern look. “Please remember that a gun is _not_ a fun toy, okay?”

                Now it’s Jake’s turn to nod. “Of course. I will be incredibly responsible.”

                Amy gives her a look that tells him she’s not very convinced.

                “And I will of course do whatever you say without hesitation.” Jake offers. “You’re the boss.”

                Amy smiles at him. “You’d better. Don’t think you know better than me just because you’ve seen Die Hard a hundred times.”

                “Ames, it is _much_ closer to a thousand and you know it.” Amy rolls her eyes. “But of course, you are team leader, and I’ll do as you command.”

                “Thank you,” she tells him.

                “Well, it’s what I need to do if I want to stay with you, right? And I need that.”

                Amy nods. “It is.”

 

                A few hours later, Amy’s supressing a yawn as they walk into their motel room. Amy drove through about three cities before stopping, trying to make sure that absolutely no one was on their tail. Once she finally stopped, it was about 1 AM—way past their usual bedtime.

                Jake instantly throws himself down onto the bed, but Amy stands over him, frowning, and he sits back up. “Yeah, Amy?”

                Amy bends down and pulls a gun out of their bag. “Let me just show you the basics, okay? So that if anything happens tonight…” she breaks off, and bites her lip. “Of course, I’ll sleep closer to the door, I’ll be the defense. And hopefully nothing will even happen.” Amy shakes her head, as if trying to shake off her worries. “Anyway, you have pretty good aim, so I don’t think we need to practice shooting too much.”

                “’Pretty good’? Babe, I _always_ win at laser tag. That’s more than pretty good.”

                Amy rolls her eyes, but smiles. “I hope you realize I could’ve easily been beating you this whole time, I just didn’t want you to know how good I am at this. I was worried about calling attention to my abilities.”

                “You mean you _let me win_? You’ve been lying to me this whole time?” Jake asks in shock.

                “Jake, you _know_ I’ve been lying to you this whole time.”

                “No, I knew you lied to me about your past, not about _laser tag_!”

                Amy sighs. “Not the biggest issue right now Jake.”

                “Right, right. Of course. Much more earth-shattering things happened today, this was definitely not the worst.” He pauses. “But like, was _nothing_ sacred?”

                “Right,” Amy says, seeming to ignore him now. “So I’m sure you have a pretty good idea of how to use a gun. You just point, aim, and pull the trigger, which I think you should be fine with. Now, you do need to keep your stance in mind.” Amy widens her stance a little bit and holds out the gun in both hands. “And watch out for the kickback.” Amy makes a face. “I wish I could get you to actually practice this, but unfortunately we don’t have time to look for and stop at some sort of shooting range. Anyway, the important thing to remember is that you have to disengage the safety before you can use the gun, and then reset it so you don’t end up shooting yourself.” Amy demonstrates to Jake how to do this as she speaks. “Any questions?”

                “Yes,” Jake says. He stands up and stands in front of Amy, his back to her. “Will you wrap your arms around me and show me how to do it?”

                He can’t see her face, but he’s pretty sure she’s just rolled her eyes again. “Really Jake?”

                Jake nods. “That way I know I’m doing it right.”

                Jake hears a sigh, but then Amy’s arms are around him—gentle on his left, around his injured shoulder—and she’s pressing the gun into his hands. She wraps her hands around Jake’s and shifts behind him. “Widen your stance just a smidge,” she tells him. He obeys. “Perfect. Now, of course, you won’t always have time to adjust your stance, but this _is_ ideal.” She pulls his arms up carefully and peeks over his shoulder, adjusting them. She aims the gun at the lamp. “Perfect. Just like this.” Amy pretends to shoot the gun, acting out pulling the trigger, and the kickback. The movement aggravates Jake’s shoulder a bit, but he doesn’t mind. “So now,” Amy guides Jake’s hand onto the safety, helping him to pull it back. “It’s as simple as this.” She then guides it back, to reset the safety. “Got it?”

                Jake slides his hand out from under Amy’s and takes her hand in his, squeezing it. “I got it, thanks sweetie.” Amy lets go of him. It was nice to have her arms around him, comforting. He thinks of this morning, when he woke up to her spooning him. It was less than 24 hours ago, but it already feels so far away.

                “Okay,” Amy says now. He turns around to look at her. She’s holding a toothbrush now. Of course she is. Even while running for her life, Amy would never skip brushing. Jake’s about to ask where his toothbrush is when she hands one to him. At this, Jake breaks into a huge grin. He loves his wife so much. He follows her into the bathroom, where she starts planning as she brushes.

                “So, if we sleep till eight, that gives us about six and a half hours of sleep. Well, assuming we fall asleep soon. But I don’t know, I’m worried eight might be pushing it.” She frowns. “On the other hand, if we end up dying in a car crash because I’m not awake enough, none of this matters.” Jake watches for a bit as Amy brushes angrily, glaring at her reflection in the mirror. Finally, she spits and straightens up.

                “I guess we’re just going to have to hope eight works,” Amy finally says. She’s biting her lip, and she looks nervous. “I mean, that’s our only choice, right?”

                Jake shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.” He honestly has no idea what to say. He can feel Amy’s panic, the worry about staying in one place too long, giving people time to catch up, but he also agrees that they definitely need their sleep. Of course, Jake wonders if Amy will even get much of it, or if she’ll spend all night worrying. “I mean, we absolutely need our sleep, and we should be fine,” Jake tells her, deciding that he needs to convince her of this so that she can sleep. “No one was following us, the motel worker thinks our names are Johnny and Dora…” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “We’re fine.”

                “I hope so,” Amy says, taking a deep breath. “These people are good though. I mean, they found us once…”

                “I know, I know. But that took years. Come on,” Jake guides her back into the bedroom. “Let’s just go to sleep.”

                Amy nods. “You’re right, we need our sleep.” Amy bends down and pulls the second gun from their bag, placing it carefully on the night stand closest to the door, just in her reach. She hands the other gun to Jake. He takes it and climbs into bed. After a bit of contemplation, he ends up placing the gun under his pillow, making sure that the barrel is pointing towards the headboard, away from either of them, just in case. Amy climbs in next to him, and Jake puts his arms around her, trying to comfort her.

                “Good night Amy,” Jake says, already feeling himself pulled down by sleepiness. He’s glad. Part of him was worried that it’d be hard to fall asleep, that he’d just start thinking about what was happening, _really thinking_ about it, and freak himself out, like Amy.

                But that isn’t the case. He’s already drifting by the time he hears Amy reply “Good night Jake,” and a few seconds later, he’s gone.

 

                Jake wakes up to Amy whispering in his ear. “Come on Jake, let’s go.”

                Jake groans, slowly sitting up and peeling off the covers. His shoulder aches as he moves, and it takes him a second to remember what happened to it. With it comes the memory that people are trying to kill him and Amy.

                With that, Jake starts to move a little bit faster, and in 5 minutes, he’s ready to hit the road again. He recovers his gun from under his pillow and tucks it into his jeans as Amy demonstrates.

                Within just 10 minutes of Jake waking up, he and Amy are striding across the parking lot. Amy wanted to ditch their car, but there’s only one other one in the lot, and there are some men hanging around it, so Amy decides they’ll just stop in the next town and look for something.

                Amy’s looking over at the men covertly. She’s got a hand at her waist, on her gun, and she looks a bit nervous, shifting to stand in front of Jake.

                “Get ready to run,” Amy whispers to him. “When I give the word.”

                Jake nods, trailing behind Amy as she picks up speed just slightly.

                They’re halfway across the parking lot when it happens.

                “Now!” Amy yells, pushing Jake in front of her with one hand, drawing her gun with the other. A gunshot rings out across the paring lot, a bullet almost striking Amy. She shoots back as she trails after Jake, and one of the men cries out in pain.

                Another bullet almost hits Jake, but then he’s at the car, running to the passenger side, where he’s protected from the shooters, and he’s pulling the door open. He’s about to get in when he hears Amy yell.

                “Ahh!” She calls out, lurching forward, and for a moment Jake thinks she’s been shot, that it’s all over and he’s lost her.

                “Amy!” He screams out. She fell behind the car, and he can’t see her now, though after a second, he hears a groan, which tells him she’s alive. Jake feels a rush of relief and jumps into action, pulling his gun out and moving towards her. As he peeks out from behind the car, he sees that one of the men is down, bleeding out on the ground. The other shoots at Jake, and he throws himself to the ground, narrowly dodging being shot at. He swings his arms up and shoots, aiming for the man’s legs. He knows the chest or the head would be better, but part of him is unsure if he could do that. As long as the man can’t harm them anymore, that’s good enough for Jake.

                The bullet hits the man in the knee and topples him. He falls to the ground with a shout, though as Jake starts to move towards Amy, the man pushes himself up and holds out an arm, aiming his gun at Jake. Before he can pull the trigger, Jake shoots at the man’s hand. He misses, aiming a bit too high and clipping him in the shoulder instead, but this knocks the man back, and seems to incapacitate him, which Jake takes as a win.

                Jake reaches Amy and starts searching for blood, trying to find where she was shot. Oddly enough, he doesn’t see anything.

                “Amy, what happened? Where were you shot?” he asks, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking more closely.

                Amy shakes her head. “I wasn’t. It’s my ankle.” She points to her right foot. “I twisted it while I was running.” Amy grimaces as Jake puts a hand on it, and tries to pull away from him. “Fuck,” she mutters. She’s biting her lip, and she looks scared. “Jake, I can’t drive. You’re gonna have to do it. Do you think you can handle that?”

                Jake nods. He’s not entirely sure if that’s true, but he knows it’s what he needs to do, and maybe it’s just the adrenaline, but something’s telling him he can do it. At any rate, they don’t have much of a choice as Jake pulls Amy carefully to her feet, so this is what’s happening.

                “Do you need ice or something?” Jake asks as he helps Amy into the passenger seat, tossing their bag in the back.

                Amy shakes her head. “Just go.”

                “Are you sure, I don’t want it to get worse—“

                “I know, I know,” Amy says, cutting him off. “We’ll stop later. For now, just _please_ go. Drive an hour, then we’ll ditch this car and find ice and figure out our next steps, okay? For now, let’s just _go._ ”

                Jake nods. “Okay, okay.” He quickly moves to the drivers seat. Amy shows him how to hotwire the car, and Jake dutifully follows her every word, his hands shaking. The car comes to life and he quickly shifts into drive, pulling out of the parking lot as fast as he possibly can. He pulls onto the highway, his hands still a bit shaky on the wheel, hits the gas, and they’re gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you to allmylovesatonce for being my proof-reader again! Thanks Gretchen! Y'all help me stop being so paranoid!  
> Also, thanks to everyone for reading! :)

                “Are you okay?” Jake asks Amy once he’s calmed down a little bit. He glances over at Amy and sees her grimacing in pain.

                “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Amy replies, though she sounds anything but. She carefully shifts her leg up so that she can get a better look at her ankle, and from what Jake can see from the corner of his eye as he refocuses on the road, she is not liking what she sees.

                Jake opens his mouth to counter, but Amy cuts him off. “What about you?”

                “What about me? I’m not injured,” he tells her, though he gets what she’s asking. He just shot a man. He knew that it was likely to happen, anticipated getting to be like John McClane, but nothing could prepare him for how it’d feel when it was real. It’s kind of terrifying to think that he’d actually done that, that Jake Peralta, average, everyday advertiser _shot a man_. And not only that, but now he’s got to shoulder the responsibility of driving, keeping them safe from further attacks, and keeping his cool if anything happens. He gets why she’s worried about him. He’s worried too. But he begged Amy to let him stay, told her that he could handle this, and now he’s going to. Amy needs him to.

                So Jake gives her a reassuring smile, and puts all his focus on the road. “I feel fine, Ames. I just hope your ankle’ll be okay.”

                “Jake,” Amy starts. He can sense her biting her lip beside him. “You just shot a man though. That was intense.”

                Jake nods. He isn’t sure how to reply. He isn’t even sure how he feels about that. It was shocking, and scary. The car is silent for a moment as he thinks about it, really letting his feelings wash over him. Ultimately, he feels kind of bad—and it was such a surreal experience—but he knows that guy was not a nice person, and he can’t feel too awful about hurting someone that was trying to _kill them_. It was his only choice. And as weird as it is to think that _he just did that_ , it was the right choice.

                “I know,” Jake finally replies. “It was. But, I’m fine. I think.”

                “You’re sure?”

                “Let’s just focus on you. You need ice. And then we need to wrap it, right?”

                “Yeah.” Amy touches her ankle gently and winces in pain. “I just hope it’s nothing too serious. Being on the run is already bad as it is.”

                “Yeah, and you better get better fast so you can get back to being the driver,” he adds. “I don’t know how long I can handle this. Probably not too long.”

                Amy laughs at this. “Hey, you wanted to stay with me, this is part of that. Starting to regret it?”

                “Of course not. I told you, I love you. I’d do whatever it takes to stay.” Jake grimaces as he realizes he’s getting too close to the left lane. “There are just clearly some things that you would be better suited to doing. This is one of them.”

                Amy laughs again, but Jake doesn’t find it so funny. He’s never been the best driver, of the two of them. Amy’s always been more composed, giving the road her full focus, and always following the rules of the road. Jake’s a bit more on the “just make it there in one piece” side, and can tend to let his focus wander past what’s directly ahead of them. Of course, he’s very focused right now, determined to keep Amy safe, but that doesn’t alleviate the worry he feels thinking about the task ahead. He just hopes no one catches up to them on the road. He could _not_ handle a repeat of what happened yesterday.

                “You’re doing great,” Amy tells him, covering his hand with her own. “You’ve got this.”

                Jake smiles and they shift into a comfortable silence, Amy rubbing Jake’s hand softly. After a minute, Jake’s phone chimes with a text.

                “What was that?” Amy asks, taking her hand back and looking at Jake. She sounds nervous. “You don’t still have your phone, do you?”

                Jake grimaces. He completely forgot it was in his pocket.

                “Jake! Didn’t I say to leave it behind?”

                “I don’t know, did you?” She did, but Jake had been in the middle of picking out which of his plaid shirts he would pack, and he was busy freaking out about the fact that Amy had just _killed someone_ , so it turns out that he never quite made it to actually following that direction.

                “ _Jake_!”

                “There was a lot going on!” Jake replies. “Besides, it’s fine, it’s fine.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and passes it to Amy. “Here.”

                “It’s _not_ fine, Jake,” Amy tells him, and he can hear a bit of anger in her voice now. “You realize that your phone’s location can be _tracked_ , right? GPS? No wonder they keep catching up to us!” Amy snatches the phone out of Jake’s hand. She looks like she’s about to throw it out the window, but suddenly it starts ringing, and she pauses, staring at it.

                “Who is it?” Jake asks.

                “Charles,” Amy replies. “What could he want at eight-thirty in the morning?”

                “Shit,” Jake mutters. He forgot about Charles. “He must be worried that I’m not at work. Although, half an hour, he should know I’ve been a lot later than that.”

                “That’s not something to brag about,” Amy says simply. She hits ignore on the call, and a few seconds later, the phone chimes with another message.

                “Okay,” Amy starts, looking around the car. “We need to get rid of this thing.”

                “Wait! Amy, if I don’t respond, Charles is gonna be even more worried.”

                Amy looks at him like he’s an idiot. “Jake, you can’t respond.”

                “Even to say ‘sorry bud, can’t talk to you anymore, don’t freak out’?”

                “What part of that message is going to cause him not to freak out?” Amy asks.

                “Okay, fine!” Jake says. “There must be something I can say!”

                Amy sighs. “Jake, there really isn’t. There’s no casual way to say ‘I’ll never see you again.’” The phone starts ringing again in her hand. She rejects the call again. “Look, I’m sorry, this is the easiest way. Just a clean cut.”

                “Wouldn’t it technically be cleaner if we tied up loose ends?” Jake asks. This entire conversation is distracting him, and he jerks the steering wheel to the left as the car almost goes off into the shoulder. He narrowly avoids colliding with the car to their left, and eventually straightens out.

                Jake glances at Amy from the corner of his eye. Her face is full of concern. Two more text notifications quickly play out from his phone, and then it’s ringing again.

                “Okay, just do what you need to,” Jake tells her. Amy rejects the call for a third time and places it on the middle console. Then she pulls out her gun—wincing slightly as she moves into the right position—and slams the butt of it down hard, shattering the screen. A few more hits, and the phone is absolutely ruined. She turns it around and pulls out the SIM card, crushing it between her fingers. She smashes the phone a few more times against the console, then examines it for a few seconds. Seeming satisfied in its destruction, Amy turns towards the window, moving slowly. She opens the window, and looks out for a few seconds, examining the cars around them. Finally, she throws the phone out the window with all her strength, launching it towards the trees on the side of the road. Jake glances over as she does so, and sees it sail quickly through the sky before disappearing.

                “Well, someone’s got anger management issues,” Jake jokes. Amy turns back so that she’s sitting straight in her seat and grimaces.

                “ _Jake_.”

                “Sorry, sorry, not the time. And I’m really sorry about bringing my phone in the first place. I just forgot.”

                “I know,” Amy tells him. She puts her hand over his again. “It’s alright. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

                “I know, but still… you got hurt because of it. I can’t believe I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

                Amy nods and leans into Jake. “It’s fine, really. You’re new at this. We’ll get there. I don’t blame you. I could’ve always double-checked.”

                “Well, there was a lot going on,” Jake points out.

                “Exactly.”

                A few seconds pass in comfortable silence. “I feel bad for Charles,” Jake finally says. Along with Gina, Charles is his closest friend. They’re basically brothers. And aside from Amy, Charles and Gina are the closest thing he has to family, ever since his mom died last year. He didn’t even think of it in the rush that’s been the past day, but now it’s suddenly coming to him that he’s never going to see them again. It’s just him and Amy now. He’s gonna miss Charles and Gina. “And I wish I’d’ve had a chance to say goodbye.”

                “I know,” Amy says, rubbing his hand softly. She hesitates for a second. She seems to be trying to come up with something else to tell him. After a few seconds, she sighs. “I know.”

 

                A few hours later, Amy’s got a melting bag of ice pressed against her ankle, and Jake is trying to persuade her to let him stop for lunch. They stopped about 2 hours ago to get the ice and change cars—which was absolutely terrifying in broad daylight, but actually went over pretty well—but Jake didn’t have time to grab more than a bag of gummy bears. Which, while occasionally his breakfast of choice, was not enough to fill him up.

                “Why didn’t you just buy more snacks?” Amy’s asking.

                “As surprising as it’s going to be to say, I don’t think I can live off of junk food,” Jake tells her. “I need substance! I crave meat!”

                Amy sighs. “Alright, I guess we can stop really quickly. I _would_ like some real food. Maybe a salad,” she suggests excitedly.

                “Okay, I love you, but a salad? Really Ames? Ew.”

                “Well, it’s not for you.”

                “Still. Ewie.”

                Amy laughs. The mood between them has started to lighten in the past few hours, which Jake takes as a big comfort. At first it was clear that Amy was just trying to make him feel better about losing Gina and Charles—to the point that she even let Jake put in the Taylor Swift CD that he packed (though she did question why he _had_ to pack that, of all things)—but now things are just comfortable and normal again. Almost like they’re not on the run from murderous people. Of course, Jake’s trying not to lose sight of that; it seems that every time he does, the universe works _very_ hard to remind him of it.

                Jake pulls into the parking lot of a McDonald’s off the highway, knowing it will both satisfy his desire for meat, and Amy’s odd need to have some vegetables. Once he parks, Jake hops out of the car and hurries over to Amy’s side, opening her door and holding out his arm.

                “Ahh, what a gentleman,” Amy says, stepping out of the car and leaning on Jake for support. She grimaces a little bit, but she looks a lot better than she did earlier.

                Jake smiles at her. “But of course.”

                He helps her inside, and they take their place at the end of the line, Amy now leaning heavily on Jake, so that she doesn’t have to put weight on her ankle to stand. He’s examining the menu, but his gaze starts to wander, and he looks around the restaurant. There’s a TV in the corner, and for a second he sees a house just like theirs. He doesn’t think much of it at first, and turns away, but then he realizes it looked _exactly_ like theirs, and turns back.

                “Oh my God,” Jake mutters under his breath. Beside him, Amy immediately tenses up.

                “What?” She asks, trying to turn to see without using her other leg. “What is it? Is someone here?” He can hear the panic starting in her voice, and he puts a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

                “No, it’s not that. It’s just… our house is on TV.” Jake says. There are captions playing along the bottom of the screen, which should presumably tell him _why_ their house is on TV, but it’s too far for him to read.

                Amy turns quickly at that, almost falling into Jake. She stares at the screen for a few moments in disbelief. “What the…?”

                Suddenly, the image changes to a picture of the two of them. Jake’s got his arm around Amy, smiling, and Amy’s leaning into him. Actually, it’s not unlike how they’re standing now.

                “Okay, that _cannot_ be good,” Jake mutters. He has no idea how to react, no idea what this is even about, but he knows that standing here, in public, recreating that image just feet away from where it’s being broadcast on TV is _not_ a good move.

                Suddenly, the image changes again, this time to Charles. He’s being interviewed, saying something that Jake can’t make out.

                “Well,” Amy says. “I think I just figured out what happened.” She looks up at Jake nervously. “We need to go. _Now._ Before the image changes back and someone sees us.”

                They’re lucky enough that right now, no one seems to have noticed the TV, but Amy’s right, it’s only a matter of time before someone sees them. Especially if it’s all over the news; it could be on the internet too by now.

                “What about lunch, though?” Jake knows that they have to hurry, but at the same time, they have to stop to eat eventually.

                “I don’t know yet,” Amy tells him, already trying to guide him away as he continues to watch Charles on the TV. “We’ll figure something out.”

                Jake nods. “Okay,” he says as they exit the restaurant. “Just one question. What is going _on_?” He glances back at the TV.

                “Well, keeping in mind that my lip-reading’s not perfect, and I don’t have all the information… Charles was saying something about how we’re very nice people, and that the police have it all wrong.”

                “But why—?”

                “He must’ve gone to our house, after you didn’t answer the phone.” Amy sighs. “He must’ve been worried, and when he got inside, he must’ve freaked and called the police. Who now think we’re murderers.”      

                “Well, fair enough, we are,” Jake points out. “Or at least you.” They reach the car, and Jake pulls Amy’s door open for her. “Sweet that Charles thinks we’re innocent. Although, it means he probably thinks something awful’s happened to us, poor guy.”

                Amy looks distressed. “What the hell are we gonna do? I mean, as if things weren’t bad enough, now we have the police after us, and our faces plastered on TV.” She starts chewing on a piece of her hair as Jake starts the car. “This is _never going to work_.”

                Jake looks at her quickly before he starts driving. “Come on, we can make this work! You’re a spy, remember?”

                “I’m an _ex-spy_. And I’ve never had my identity broadcast across the news before. I mean, where on Earth are we supposed to hide? Before long, everyone in the state will know what we look like! A lot more people are going to be looking for us.”

                Jake sighs. He’s not sure what to do either. But he knows that neither option—jail or death—seems pretty great. He’s musing on what to do when suddenly Amy’s sitting up straight, looking hopeful.

                “Jake!”

                “What? You’ve got something?”

                Amy nods. “I mean, it’s not perfect, of course. But Charles only called a few hours ago. That means he called the police even more recently.”

                “Okay…” Jake says, not sure where she’s going with this.

                “Quick, turn there,” she commands, and Jake quickly obeys. “So this news story has to be fresh.” Jake nods again. “Which means we might still have a bit of time before many people have seen it. Turn here.”

                “Amy, I’m sorry, I’m not as fast as you, what is it?” He makes another turn at her urging, and suddenly he realizes what she saw to strike her epiphany. A sign for a Wal-Mart.

                “If we hurry, we could get we need to disguise ourselves, at least a little bit. Different clothes, hair-dye, scissors, we could transform ourselves at least enough that we won’t be immediately spotted.”

                Jake nods, suddenly understanding her idea.

                “It won’t be perfect, but if we no longer bear passing resemblance to those photos, it could at least make it a bit harder to be recognized.” She stops and considers something. “The only thing is that we have to hope no one inside has seen the news story yet. But it’s a big store, and I doubt anyone’s checking the news while shopping. As long as they don’t have it playing on any TVs...”

                “Amy,” Jake says, putting a hand on hers as they pull into the parking lot. “That is perfect. Plus, they have food!”

                Amy smiles at him. “Okay, I’m only giving us fifteen minutes to shop though.” She frowns at her watch. “And even that might be pushing it.”

                Jake turns the car off and hops out, hurrying to her side. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I am so so so sorry that another update took so long! I just got so busy with work, and I was at a kind of rough point in the story, but I think I have a pretty good idea of what's happening going forward now!  
> I want to let you know, I'm back in school now, and I'm probably going to get distracted by that pretty soon, but I have every intention of finishing, even if it takes a few months to update!  
> So please bear with me, I do really wanna finish this!

“So,” Amy begins. “You know, when I used to have to go undercover, I would always need to create aliases. You know, a fake name and backstory?” She looks at Jake expectantly, and he can tell she’s saying this because she knows he’ll like it. “I think we should do that for our new couple.”

                Jake smiles at her. They’re in a new car, about an hour later, armed with snacks and fresh from their makeovers. Amy’s hair is shorter now, falling just above her shoulders, and incredibly blonde. As she speaks, she’s also applying some makeup—a bit more than usual, a bit darker—as her finishing touch.

                Jake runs a hand through his own hair, which is now a dark red. Amy shaved the sides, but kept a few curls on top. It feels weird, though it’s certainly not the first time he’s dyed his hair. He was big into frosting his tips when he was in high school.

                “Okay,” Jake says, reaching between them for the peanut butter crackers nestled in the cup-holder. “I am… Carl Montague. A paper salesman from… Montana.”

                Amy nods. “Nice.” She sets down her makeup and pops a few crackers in her mouth, then adjusts the fresh ice tied around her ankle. It isn’t as swollen anymore, and while they were dyeing their hair, she was putting more pressure on it, but Jake can tell it still really hurts her. “And I’m your wife, Jessica Montague. Maiden name Capulet, of course,” Amy adds with a grin.

                Jake smiles at her. “Capulet, nice.” The name sounds vaguely familiar, and Jake suddenly remembers one of the times Amy took him out to see a play, in an attempt to be more cultured. “Wait, no, that’s bad. They died!”

                Amy smiles. “You remember.”

                “Of course I do, that was awful!” Now it’s coming back to him. The weird chain of events that led to Romeo and Juliet killing themselves, after only knowing each other a few days. He thought it was going to be a sweet love story, and that was _awful_. The only thing he actually understood was their love. Some people say that they hadn’t been together nearly long enough to know it was love, and while Jake can admit that they were pretty young, and they did _really_ overreact, he does connect to the fact that they knew they were in love. After all, he himself knew that after only a few days in Paris with Amy. And he was absolutely right.

                “I’ll admit it’s not my favourite of Shakespeare’s,” Amy says, grabbing a cracker. “Perhaps we could go by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? Although that could be a bit too on the nose, considering.”

                “Is that the one where they kill a guy?” Jake asks. Amy nods. “Then yeah, a little much.”

                “Alright, we’ll stick with Jessica and Carl Montague. Tell me, where did Jessica and Carl meet?”

               

                They continue on like that for quite some time, determining all the little facts of their new identities. Jake can tell Amy’s just doing it to distract him, tell help him forget that there are killers after them, and the police, and all that’s standing between them and some kind of awful fate are his driving skills and their makeover abilities. He’s extremely grateful to her for it, and after a while, it does start to distract him. Soon, there’s nothing but the Montagues and the road ahead of them.

                Eventually, Jake and Amy run out of things to say about the Montagues, and Amy, having barely slept the night before—out of worry for their safety—falls asleep with her head on Jake’s shoulder.

                Jake drives for a few hours in a comfortable quiet, playing his Taylor Swift albums at a low volume. At first, it was hard to stop worrying about their situation when the conversation stopped and he was left alone with his thoughts. But the further he gets into Arizona, and the longer they go without any problems, the more comfortable Jake gets. It seems that the worst of their trip is behind them. They even make it all the way out of the state without any problems.

 

                Jake and Amy have stopped at a gas station somewhere in New Mexico to grab a few snacks when it happens.

                Amy grabs Jake’s hand the second she notices the police officers walking towards them, pulling him down behind a shelf.

                “Ahh,” Jake says. “What?”

                “Sorry, honey,” Amy says in a falsely sweet voice. “I just want your opinion on what type of…” she looks at the shelf in front of them. “What type of toothpaste you wanted.”

                “Okay…” Jake replies. Then he sees a booted foot on the other side of the shelf, and suddenly it makes sense. “Well, this is a _very_ big decision. Not one to be taken lightly. We could be here a while.”

                “That’s what I was thinking,” Amy tells him, nodding. “So, Colgate’s a pretty cool brand, but then Crest is good too…”

                “And Arm And Hammer,” Jake adds. “That’s a brand I’m familiar with.”

                Amy nods again. “True. So we do have a _lot_ of options here…”

                “Sure do,” Jake replies. The officer hasn’t moved, but Jake feels like they’re starting to run out of toothpaste conversation. He leans closer to Amy and whispers. “What are we gonna do?”

                Amy shrugs. “Wait it out? What _can_ we do, without looking suspicious?”

                “Can’t we just calmly exit?”

                Amy bites her lip. “I’m just worried. Our disguises are good from a distance, but what if they recognize us up close?”

                “What if we’re stuck looking at toothpaste for the rest of our lives?” Then, at a normal volume, Jake adds, “I don’t know about _cool mint_. Icy mint just sounds better.”

                “They’re literally the same thing,” Amy points out. 

                “Well if they’re the same thing, we’ll just get the icy mint,” Jake tells her.

                “Alright, fine.” She gives him a look. “Let’s just go _._ ” She tilts her head up and the two of them stand, bringing their purchases to the counter, where a clerk slowly begins to check them out.

                Jake leans down to whisper in Amy’s ear, kissing her temple on the way and trying to look romantic. “We’re on TV again,” he says, his stomach full of knots.

                Amy looks up to where an image of them is playing on the screen, along with more urgent calls for information on the murderous couple.

                “Okay, okay, not a big deal,” Amy whispers. Jake assumes she’s trying to act calm, but despite being a highly trained operative, she’s failing. “I mean sure they can probably see that we have _very_ similar faces to the… are they calling us the San Francisco Slashers?”

                Jake smiles despite himself. “That’s actually a pretty dope name.”

                “That’ll be fifteen thirty-five,” the cashier says, bringing Jake and Amy to focus. Amy pulls out her wallet and starts digging for change.

                “Icy mint was more expensive,” she says to Jake in what seems to be a joking tone. Just trying to maintain the appearance of a normal couple who get upset about normal things, like overpaying for a toothpaste flavour.

                “It’s worth it,” Jake points out.

                Amy gives him a look and then hands the money over. The cashier slides them their bag and a receipt, and they’re moving.

                “Excuse me, sir?” one of the officers calls out.

                Jake looks to Amy in panic, not daring to stop. They reach the door and Amy nods to him. “Run.”

                Amy pushes the door open and starts running, Jake hot on her heels. He has no idea where they’re going, or what they’re going to do, he’s just following where his wife leads him. Of course, she’s a lot more athletic than him, a lot faster, and he’s already getting a little bit tired, but the sound of the officers following him helps him to push through.

                They’re partway across the parking lot when out of nowhere, men with guns appear in front of them. And these guys don’t exactly look like police.

                “There you are,” the one standing in front says. “We heard _Amy_ _Peralta_ might be heading this way. If that’s what you’re calling yourself now.” He smiles, and it’s a horrible, menacing thing.

                “But…” Amy comes to a halt in front of them.

                “You thought you could hide. Well, you got away with it once, I’ll give you that. But we’re not gonna let it happen again.”

                The sound of footsteps behind them is starting to get louder as the police begin to catch up.

                Amy looks at Jake for a second, then grabs his hand and turns, running back towards the police.

                “Amy! What are you doing?” Jake asks as she drags him along behind her. A shot rings out, but it seems to miss both of them, and then he hears the guys behind them scatter, presumably as they notice the police.

                Amy runs right into one of the officers, who looks at her in a bit of shock.

                “My name is Amy Peralta,” she tells him. “This is Jake Peralta.”

                “You’re the ones who killed the woman in San Francisco?” the officer asks. He doesn’t look too surprised by Amy’s confession. Which means they had been right to run; the officers were onto them. Not that that means anything now.

                “Yes!”

                “Okay, Amy Peralta, you are under arrest for the murder of Isabelle Langdon.” The officer looks at his partner, and she moves forward, addressing Jake in the same way.

                Then they’re shoved into the back of a police car and driven to the Las Cruces police department.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! We're actually getting really close to the end now! Maybe 3 more chapters?  
> And I'm so excited to finally write the next one! There's a scene in it that's been in my head since the beginning!  
> I hope you guys enjoy!

                “So,” Jake says as they stand in the holding cell at the precinct. “I guess our makeover was for nothing?”

                Amy gives him a weak smile. “I’m sorry.”

                “You really do apologize a lot, don’t you?” Jake says with a smile.

                “Well, I almost got us killed, and now—maybe even worse—I got us arrested.”

                “Calm down, Hermione. In the choice between getting straight up murdered and getting arrested, I think you picked a solid route.”

                “Yeah, except now what?” Amy stands up from the bench they’re sitting on and goes to stand near the bars. “We’re gonna rot in jail for the rest of our lives. Over an extremely justified move of self-defence,” she adds.

                “We could maybe argue that,” Jake suggests, but Amy just shakes her head. Now she’s running her hands over the bars, as if she could find a way to dismantle them.

                Jake steps forward and whispers to her, despite the fact that they’re the only ones in the holding cell, and it’s late enough at night that there aren’t even any officers in the bullpen at the moment. “Is there any way we can break out?”

                Amy bites her lip. “I mean… maybe… I’m just not really sure how we’d pull it off. I could maybe pick this lock, but then, how would we make it the rest of the way without getting caught?”

                Jake gets up and goes to stand beside her.

                “Could we distract them, somehow?”

                Amy looks at him. “How could we do that?”

                “Um… well… oh, we kiss, and then they’re all like ‘oh no, PDA!’ and they’re just so flustered by it that like, we can run away?”

                “I don’t think just kissing would freak them out _that much_.” Amy then gestures for Jake to be quiet and turns her head. “Okay, right now I’d say there are about five officers in the building. One at the front desk, three in that briefing room, and I know I saw another… somewhere down that way.” She points to the left.

                “Okay, so five guys, two of us, that’s not _too_ bad.”

                “But we’re both unarmed. And only one of us is actually skilled to fight, no offense.”

                “No, no, that’s fair, that’s super fair.”

                “Of course, I’ve had to face worse odds before…” Amy muses.

                “Of course you have,” Jake says, smiling at the thought of his wife taking out about ten guys by herself.

                Amy regards the bars in front of her for a few seconds. “Okay, so we fight. I mean, it’s dangerous, for sure. But they’re not gonna _shoot_ us. Not unless we’re really bad... So the worst that could happen is that we don’t make it out. And we get another thing added to our records.” Now she looks concerned, but she shakes her head. “Which is _not_ a big problem when we’re already facing life in prison.”

                Jake smiles at her. “So we’re gonna try!”

                Amy smiles back. “Hell yeah we’re gonna try. Now the only thing we need is a plan… we’d need to draw them out somehow. And figure out how they’re most likely to arrive, as well as a few other possibilities, map out plans of action for each.”

                “Okay, okay.”

                “Alright, so we’ll start with something to get them over here… we need something loud, and interesting, something that will actually draw at least one officer into the cell with us.”

                Jake has no idea what to offer, but watches Amy think for a few minutes until she turns to him.

                “Jake, you’re a genius.”

                “I’ve been told, but what does that have to do with—oh my God, we’re doing the kissing thing.”

                Amy grins. “We most certainly are.”

 

                “Okay, you’re sure you’ve got this?” Amy asks. “Want to go over it again?”

                Jake sighs. “Ames, we’ve gone over it twenty times, let’s just go,” Jake says. They’re both sitting on the bench, and he pulls her closer, then carefully lays down.

                “Okay, okay,” she says, draping herself over him. “Wait,” she pushes herself back up and carefully undoes two buttons on her shirt. “Okay.” Then she lies down on top of Jake and starts making out with him.

                “Oh Jake,” she calls out loudly in between kisses. “Jake, yes!”

                Jake starts laughing, and Amy pauses to look at him. “What?”

                “Nothing, it’s just… it’s kind of weird. The way you’re calling out like that.”

                “Well this is what’s gonna get us out of here, so shh.” She presses her lips against his before he can say anything else. “Jake, Jake, _yes!”_

                “Amy, ooh yeah!” Jake yells, trying to get into it too. She gives him a weird look but keeps going, and soon the two of them are shouting weirdly in between kisses.

                “Ooh mama, that’s it!” Amy almost screams. And now Jake can hear footsteps coming towards them.

                “Amy, Amy, I love you _so much_!” Jake calls out, tangling his hands in her hair.

                “What are you two doing?” An officer asks, suddenly appearing at the door to the cell.

                “Jake, take off your pants, let’s do this!” Amy yells, putting her hands at his waist.

                “Oh my God!” The officer fumbles with his keys and quickly opens the door to the cell, running towards them as Amy starts unbuttoning Jake’s pants, taking it a bit further than he’d expected.

                “Mmm.. God, do I love you!” Amy murmurs against Jake’s lips.

                “Stop that!” The officer yells, and then he’s pulling Amy off of Jake.

                “Jake!” She screams, trying to grab hold of Jake’s shirt. She loses her grip and the officer pulls her away. And then she kicks him as hard as she can in the groin. He calls out in pain and drops Amy, who then turns and kicks her leg out, knocking him to the ground. Then she moves to stand over him and grabs him by the shirt collar before slamming his head down on the ground, knocking him unconscious. She grabs his gun for herself, and passes his baton to Jake—just in case—who quickly follows her out of the cell, just in time for three more officers to arrive. Which was exactly what Amy had planned for.

                Amy quickly dispatches the first one by kicking her swiftly in the chest, knocking her into another officer and taking them both out. Then she whirls around and grabs the other one’s head, slamming it against the wall. All before any of them could even draw aim a gun in her direction.

                Amy smiles to herself for a second before the final officer shows up. And this one _is_ aiming in her direction.

                “Put your hands up!” The officer yells out. Jake and Amy do as she says. “Alright, now playtime’s over. Back in the cell.”

                Jake and Amy carefully start moving towards the holding cell, the officer following them closely. Then, just as they get to the door, Amy makes her move. She pretends to trip, throwing herself to the floor, and stretching her arms out so her shirt rides up, revealing the gun tucked into the back of her jeans. And just as Amy and Jake had discussed in one of their many, many contingency plans, this causes the officer—now forced to choose between her two prisoners—to focus her aim on Amy. Leaving Jake unnoticed as he carefully inches forward, the throws himself into the officer’s knees, knocking her to the ground. She pulls the trigger, but the bullet ends up hitting the ceiling as she falls, and the gun flies out of her grasp, sliding across the floor. Meanwhile, Amy quickly jumps up, pulling the gun from her waistband and quickly training it on the officer on the ground.

                “Up,” Amy says, pointing at the woman with her gun. The officer reluctantly obeys, and Amy shoves her into the cell and shuts the door. “Bye,” she adds, keeping her gun trained on the woman as she slowly backs away towards Jake, who’s picked up the officer’s gun and is now waiting for Amy.

                “I think I reopened the cut on my back,” Jake says, grimacing at Amy.

                Amy nods. “And I think I aggravated my ankle.” She gestures towards the exit, and the two of them start walking, aiming still keeping her gun trained on the woman until she’s out of view. “We’ll handle it,” she tells him. “And you did _so_ well, sweetie,” she adds proudly. Jake notices she’s limping a tiny bit, but she’s powering through pretty well. At the front desk, she stops and finds a first aid kit, then pulls out a bunch of gauze and stuffs it into Jake’s pocket. “Now come on. Let’s get out of here.”

                And Jake and Amy Peralta walk straight out of the Las Cruces police station and disappear into the night.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!  
> I just wanted to say, this chapter was more just for fun, but it's something I've been wanting to do forever and I can't believe I'm really posting it now, this is such a big deal, I hope you enjoy!

                The next 24 hours pass in a blur. As soon as they exit the precinct, they steal a car from the parking lot, driving for about half an hour before trading it for another one. And another one. Eventually they get far enough from Las Cruces, and go down to a system of a new car about every 3 hours, one way or another.

                Amy drives initially, despite the pain in her ankle, and Jake is forced to apply his own gauze—though Amy lends a hand to help him hold it—a task which he doesn’t handle with much grace, though at the very least, he does succeed. A few hours away from Las Cruces, Jake feels comfortable enough to take a nap, and soon the two of them beginning trading off sleeping and driving, so that they don’t have to stop to sleep.

                They stop for food and washrooms only in very busy restaurants, places where they can blend in with the crowd. They wear sunglasses that they luckily found in that second car—keeping their faces hidden without feeling suspicious. Jake still fears that someone will recognize them, that somehow they’ll run right into another police officer—or worse, more people who want to kill them—but they never do.

                They’re about an hour away from Jacksonville—the exact location of Amy’s safehouse—when their car breaks down in a small town called Coral Palms.

                “Great,” Amy says as they exit the car, which is smoking from beneath the hood.

                Jake looks at it in concern. “That does not look good.”

                “No it does not,” she replies, looking worried. She starts scanning the area around her. “Oh, up ahead!” She points at a sign just a little bit in the distance. “I think there’s something over there.”

                She starts walking, and Jake falls in line beside her, though he has to slow his pace a little bit so she can keep up.

                “Well, at least it happened at night,” Amy says, looking around the darkened street. No one seems to be around, and even if they were, Jake doubts anyone would be able to recognize them in the darkness.

                They’re getting closer to the sign now, and Jake can start to make out what it says. “Frank’s Fun Zone,” he reads. “Sounds pretty cool,” he says. “Ooh, I wonder if they have a ball pit!”

                “Jake, focus!”

                “Right. Not about the ball pit.” They walk together in silence for a few seconds. “But like, wouldn’t it be _dope_ to play in the ball pit?”

                Amy sighs, and she looks tired. “It would be pretty cool,” she admits, giving Jake an exhausted smile, which he returns. She’s been through a lot—they both have—but at least they’re almost there.

                The two of them continue to follow the road until it opens up into the Fun Zone parking lot, empty except for a single car, illuminated under a street light.

                “Perfect,” Amy says, approaching the car slowly. Jake goes to stand beside her, and she’s trying to wrench the car door open when Jake hears footsteps, and looks up to see two men watching them, seemingly having come from inside the Fun Zone.

                “Ames,” Jake hisses, and Amy looks up just in time to see the men too.

                “Oh! Um, hi!” she calls out, trying to look innocent.

                The much taller one looks at them in confusion. “Hi… can we help you?”

                “Um… no,” Amy replies. “Nope. We were just…”

                “Admiring this lovely car!” Jake supplies. “Is this yours? Cause it’s fantastic. A real… beauty. Of a car.”

                “Okay…” the man says, sounding incredibly unconvinced. He steps forward, coming towards them, and his companion follows at his side. He’s got messy light hair and a beard, and glasses that he adjusts as he regards them. “Do we know you guys from somewhere? You look incredibly familiar.” He looks to the other man, who’s small with dark, short hair.

                “Um, porn!” Jake blurts. Amy glares at him but he ignores it. “We’ve done a lot of porn. Like, just, a ton.”

                “Oh, cool,” the smaller man says. “I did porn once too! I didn’t really like it.”

                The taller man looks shocked. “You have?”

                “Just the once,” the other man tells him. “The woman was nice, but it was a little uncomfortable”

                “Right,” Jake says, feeling uncomfortable himself. “So… we should go.”

                “Wait, no, that’s not it though,” the tall man says. He regards them for a few seconds, and Jake’s incredibly scared that he’s going to figure it out, before he switches to something else. “And what are you doing here anyway? It’s like eleven PM.”

                “Um…”

                “Well, you see, our car broke down,” Amy supplies. “Could you just point us in the direction of the nearest auto shop? We’ll take it from there.”

                “We could take you,” the shorter man supplies. “It’s on our way home!”

                “ _Taylor_ …” the other man says softly. “What have we discussed about picking up strangers?”

                “They seem nice.”

                “You don’t even know them. They could be murder—” the man’s eyes widen, and he turns back to Jake and Amy. “That’s it!”

                “What’s it?”

                “You guys are on the news. You killed a woman in California!” Jake’s heart drops as the man turns to Taylor. “Remember that?”

                Taylor shakes his head. “No.”

                Jake looks at Amy in worry, but she appears rather calm. He starts trying to back away from the men while they’re distracted, but Amy holds out her hand and grabs his arm.

                “And then they got arrested, remember? And staged a prison break?” the man looks back at Jake and Amy and regards them for a second. “It showed their mugshots, it’s definitely them.”

                Taylor seems to think for a minute, then shakes his head. “I don’t think I’ve heard about this _at all_ , James.”

                “You were literally _there_ when it was on TV last night,” James argues, seeming exasperated. He drops his voice. “We were cuddling, and I pointed it out to you.”

                Taylor just shrugs. “Nothing. Although, I do remember _cuddling_ ,” he adds with a wink.

                James blushes. “Right, well, they _killed a woman_ , Tay.”

                “We didn’t kill anyone!” Amy argues.

                “But the news report said you’d confessed,” James says. Then, seeming to regret speaking out to a murderer like that, he takes a step back, pulling Taylor back with him. Amy sighs, and steps forward a bit.

                “ _Look_ ,” Amy says, as she moves toward them. James puts an arm around Taylor’s shoulder protectively. “Even though it doesn’t really matter what you think, we are not the bad guys here. We’re being hunted down, and we’re just trying to keep ourselves safe. Okay?”

                James looks a little unsure, but he nods. “Okay… But then why would you confess?” He asks, his curiosity seeming to get the better of him.

                Amy shakes her head. “That’s not important. Now, I promise I won’t hurt you two, but I need you to cooperate.” Amy says.

“Alright,” James tells her. He looks scared, but seems ready to trust Amy, though maybe just because it’s his only option. Other than trying to run away from a supposed murderer. Jake tries shooting the two of them a comforting smile from where he stands behind Amy, but he doesn’t know if either of them notice.

 Amy gestures for the two of them to move forward, towards the building. They do so, Jake trailing behind them. He’s a little bit nervous about not knowing what’s going on, but he knows Amy would never hurt them unnecessarily, and he trusts her.

                “Okay, open the door,” Amy tells them, and Taylor reluctantly does so. Jake follows them inside, where many arcade machines light up bright colours in the darkness.

                Amy looks around the Fun Zone, then moves towards the caged area of the ball pit.

                “So… we’re just gonna play in the ball pit and have fun and forget anything happened here?” Jake asks, trying to lighten the mood. Taylor does seem to perk up a bit at that idea.

                Amy shakes her head, then looks at Taylor, then James. “Look, I am _really_ sorry about this,” she tells them.

                The two of them look at each other nervously. James reaches out and grabs Taylor’s hand.

                “Now, just stand against the cage,” Amy tells them. They do as she says, and Amy pulls a pair of handcuffs out of her pocket. Jake looks at her in surprise.

                “Stole them from the police station,” she says in response to his look. “Thought it might come in handy.”

                “Oh,” Jake says with a nod.

                She opens the handcuffs and clasps one half around Taylor’s wrist. Then she passes the other half through one of the holes of the fence, and brings it out on the other side, where she grabs James’s wrist and encircles it in the cuff, chaining the couple to the fence.

                “Again, I am sorry about this,” Amy tells them. Neither of them say a word. “I just—we can’t trust you not to call the police. And we can’t have anyone knowing where we are.”

                James regards her for a second, still looking uncomfortable, but a little bit less scared. “Understood.”

                “Alright,” Amy says. Then she moves forward and searches James’s pockets, withdrawing his phone, before doing the same to Taylor.

                “So that’s it?” James asks nervously, as Amy steps back with Taylor’s phone. “You’re not gonna do anything else?”

                Amy shakes her head, and tries to smile at him comfortingly, though Jake’s not sure that she’s quite achieving it. “This’ll be enough. By the time someone finds you in the morning, we’ll be long gone. It’s just an assurance, I hope you understand.”

                He nods. “Yeah, I do. I mean, I hate it, but I probably _would_ be calling the police right now, so I do.”

                Taylor smiles at him. “This could be romantic.”

                “It’s not really…” James tells him.

                “But it could be,” Taylor counters, and James blushes.

                “Okay, are we done with our kidnapping then?” Jake asks Amy.

                “Well, we’re not _taking them_ anywhere, so it’s not technically _kidnapping,_ per se—oh but by the way,” Amy adds. “We do need to steal your car. But here…” she reaches into her purse, and pulls out $500, which she tucks into the pocket of Taylor’s shorts. “I know it’s not much, but we’ll try not to damage it, and the police should be able to track it down for you eventually.”

                The two of them both look unsure of how to react to that.

                “Right, so I’ll leave the key and your phones on this counter,” Amy says, walking over and placing them next to a cash register. “And again, I apologize for this.”

                “And I apologize too,” Jake adds. “Though I didn’t really do much… I’m just sort of an accomplice. But sorry. And by the way, you guys are an adorable couple.”

                Taylor smiles at that. “Thank you. I mean, you guys are one of the most beautiful couples I’ve ever seen. You’re both just like, _wow_.” James elbows him. “Sorry,” he whispers, giving James a little grin.

                “Right,” Amy says, appearing by Jake’s side. She grabs his hand. “Goodbye,” she says to James and Taylor, before turning to leave, pulling Jake behind her.

                “Bye guys,” Jake calls out behind him. “It was nice to meet you!”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it!  
> It's been a great 9 months, but I'm finally done! Sorry it took so long! I really expected to be done before 2018, but I'm only 28 days late!   
> Thanks of reading!

Jake and Amy ditch the car on the outskirts of Jacksonville and spend the next hour zig-zagging through the darkness of the city. By the time they finally reach Amy’s safehouse, her ankle is killing her, and Jake’s feet are covered in blisters. Still, they’re here, and they’re safe.

                “Alright,” Amy says as she places a hand carefully on the door handle. “So we’ll spend the night here, plan our next move, and in the morning, we leave the country.”

                Jake frowns. “Is that still an option? Aren’t we like wanted criminals?”

                Amy smiles. “Don’t worry, I’ve got that covered. You see, we aren’t really gonna look like ourselves for that much longer. Think our earlier makeovers, but on a much higher budget.”

                With that, Amy shoves the door open and Jake follows her inside. The floor creaks as they make their way inside, and the lights take a few moments before finally flickering to life.

                “Alright…” Amy locks the door behind them and makes her way to the bedroom, throwing open the closet doors. Inside is a huge wardrobe, filled with a myriad of wigs and clothes for the both of them. “Pick one,” Amy says, gesturing to different wigs. “Then we’ll use some of these,” she picks up a box and opens it to reveal a large selection of prosthetic makeup. “And I’ll create some fake passports. Tomorrow morning we’ll be on a plane to Sweden.”

                “Wow,” Jake says, examining the prosthetics. “This is impressive.”

                “Thank you. You know, I haven’t been back here since back when I was still a spy. I honestly thought I’d never have to come back.” Amy shakes her head, and Jake can tell she still blames herself for not being more careful. He puts an arm around her shoulder comfortingly.

                “Right,” Amy says, shaking her head again. “We should get out of here.”

                Jake nods and goes to examine some of the wigs. After a bit of deliberation, he goes for shoulder length black hair that he thinks kind of makes him look younger. Then Amy applies some prosthetics to make his cheeks look fuller and his chin more pointed. In just an hour, Jake is transformed into an entirely new person.

                Amy’s finished her own makeup—a rounder nose, rounder chin and a few more wrinkles that she delicately details—and is working on their fake passports when the front door suddenly bursts open. She quickly grabs her gun and jumps up, and soon a man is standing in the doorway to the bedroom. He simply smiles when he sees Amy’s gun, and she pales a bit upon seeing him.

                “No,” Amy breathes. “No, no, no.”

                The man smiles again. “Actually, Cecelia, yes. Or should I say Dora? Lara? Clarissa? Amy? Whatever you’re going by these days.”

                “Wait, Ames, who is this guy?”

                Amy takes a shaky breath and looks back at Jake. “Well, we used to work together. And now let me guess; double agent? Finally picked a side?”

                The man’s smile widens. “You always were a smart one, Cecelia.”

                “So, what? You’ve come to kill me then? Take out the competition? You should know that that part of my life is over.”

                “Yes, well… you should also know that this isn’t the kind of life you can just quit.”

                “So, what? It hurt your feelings that I left?”

                “Look, my agency—”

                “The one you’re truly loyal to.”

                He offers Amy a toothy grin. “Yes, that one. They don’t exactly trust that people just quit. So, when they wanted to track you down—to neutralize you properly—well, I couldn’t help but offer my services. After all, with access to your agency’s databases, I already knew everything I needed.”

                “And you think you’ve won, I suppose?” Amy asks. “Remember who’s holding the gun here.”

                The man raises both of his eyebrows. Jake’s not entirely sure what happens, but suddenly the room is filled with smoke, and a shot rings out through the room. Jake’s pretty sure it was Amy who shot it, but he can’t see anything, and then he hears a thud, followed by a pained noise. And then another. And another.

                Jake moves to the ground in an attempt to see better, but all he can see is the man’s feet and Amy’s legs. Finally, the smoke clears, revealing the man clutching Amy’s hair in his fist, his gun pointed at Jake. Amy’s nose is bleeding, the prosthetic coming off, and she’s biting her lip.

                “Ames!” Jake exclaims, and he starts to move forward, but the man moves the gun, presses the barrel into Amy’s head, and Jake stops.

                “That’s what I thought.” Then he turns to Amy. “So, we are going by Amy then, I see. That’s a pretty name.”

                Amy just grimaces and shifts a little as he presses the barrel into her head.

                Jake has no idea what the hell he’s going to do.

                “Alright then,” Amy says. “Why not just kill me already then?”

                “Please, Amy. Let me enjoy this for a minute.” The man regards Jake. “So, this is what you gave your life up for. I have to say, he doesn’t really seem like much.”

                “I wanted out before I met Jake,” Amy argues. “But you find opportunities in the most unlikely of places,” Amy says. She seems to be trying to signal something to Jake, looking down at the floor and back up at him repeatedly. “And when you do find those opportunities, it’s hard not to take them.” She looks down and back up again. Jake looks at the floor in front of him, but can’t seem to decipher what it is. The man seems to be looking at Amy now, though, so Jake carefully runs his hands along the floor, trying to figure out what it is. He discovers a loose feeling floor board, but is unable to investigate before the man in looking back at him.

                “Hey!” he shouts, training the gun back on Jake. “What do you think you’re doing?”

                “Oh, um… just bracing myself,” Jake lies, leaning forward and putting his weight on his left arm. I’m just kind of feeling sick, you know?”

                The man seems to lose interest in Jake after that and kneels down to Amy’s height so he can look at her while he monologues. Jake can’t hear what’s being said—his heart is pounding so loudly in his ears. He carefully hooks his fingers under the floorboard and attempts to quietly lift it. It takes an agonizing few seconds, but he manages to get it up without attracting the man’s attention. He’s facing away from Jake right now, and Jake carefully disables the safety and raises up a shaking hand. The man’s in a relaxed position, his gun lowered. If Jake shot right now, the bullet would hit him before he had time to react in any way that might hurt Amy. This is his one chance. Jake wraps his other gun around the gun, steadying it, and pulls the trigger.

                It all happens so quickly. One minute, the guy is still there, droning on to Amy. The next minute, his body is slumped down on the ground, and there is blood and chunks of gross matter everywhere. This isn’t the first time Jake’s shot someone, but it is the first time he’s really seeing the after-effects, and it’s enough to cause him to double over and throw up right there. Meanwhile, Amy—much more covered in blood and shit than Jake is—simply says “Good job, babe”, peels off her wig and prosthetics, and walks to the bathroom.

                Jake still feels sick when she returns. “Babe, are you okay?”

                “I just shot a man,” Jake replies. “And I feel sick.”

                Amy puts an arm around him, hugging Jake to her. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s not an easy thing to do.”

                Jake shakes his head. “It’s not.”

                “Are you going to be okay though? I think he may have been the last of them, but we can never be too careful. We need to get out of here.” Amy stands up and she’s already crafting a new look, selecting a new—less bloody—wig and going through the prosthetics.

                “Yeah,” Jake says. He actually thought he’d feel worse after killing someone, but he doesn’t. Mainly it’s just the nausea from all the blood after. But as for the act, he’s actually pretty okay. He did wait he had to do. “Of course I am. I’m with you.”

               

 Epilogue

2 years later, Jake Peralta stands in the kitchen of his home in Ireland. This is already their 18th country since they left Florida, and one that Jake’s really growing to love. Of course, it won’t be much longer till they move again—this time to actually settle down for about six months—but for now he’s just enjoying the time they have.

                After Jake shot that man, he and Amy fled to the airport and got on the first plane to Sweden. From there they hoped a plane to Greece, and just to be safe, they caught another plane to Argentina after that. After they arrived in Argentina, they calmed down a little, only moving every month or so. Amy’s pretty sure that John—that was his name: John—was the last person following them, but she still likes to be safe. She had a huge amount of cash—about three million US dollars in various currencies—stashed away in the safe house, so they can afford to keep moving. But at this point, they’ve changed both their locations and names so many times that it’d be hard to keep up with them. Not to mention the constant use of prosthetics when they leave the house—which is rare, but just often enough as to not raise too much suspicion from locals—and the many a haircut and dye job they’ve endured.

                This is all to say that Jake and Amy are feeling pretty safe right now. Amy would hate to underestimate and get lazy, of course, so as much as she says she thinks they’re safe, she’s always preparing herself. Guns are hard to transport overseas, but she’s got plans and backup plans and backup backup plans. And they’ve already made it two years without anyone from that rival agency tracking them down, so they’re doing alright.

                Jake just hopes they can stay that way. After all, he thinks as he lays a hand on Amy’s stomach, feeling a little kick greet him, they’re taking a big risk now. One that they never actually meant to take, of course. But now that it’s happening, they can’t allow themselves to lose it. They love it so much already, and they have always wanted a baby, after all. So instead they’ve just got to keep going, and hope that it’s enough.


End file.
